22 November 2008

Levels of Beliefs

The components, body, mind and heart that make up a person can be used to understand his behavior and belief. We are at times very moved and inspired by what the Leaders and Preachers say they believe in publicly only to be shocked by their behavior and private talks that reveal a different belief. Some one (e.g. John Ortberg's 'Faith & Doubt' )classify them at 3 levels:

Body - What we Say we belief - the Public Belief.

Mind - What we Think we belief - the Mental Accent

Heart - What we Really belief and acting them out naturally - The Core Belief

Saying Belief
We say many things out of politeness that we don't really believe. We want others to think we believe. This is called a spin job or a marketing message. We can't tell the truth of a Spin or a Marketing message until we actually experience it. Most people think that 'Branding' is just that - a catchy and inspiring slogan or tag-line. But true Branding is about consistent experience with the proclaimed message. Some saying says that we are smart when we believe only 50% of what we hear and we are truly smart when we know which 50% to believe in. Hence, we learn not to fully trust the 'beliefs' we hear until we can see them in action. We also learn that saying it out is just 1st step.

Thinking Belief
There is a story about a Rope-Walker who publicly displayed his skill on rope-walking by carrying things and performing acrobat from one end of the rope to the other end. He asked his spectators whether they belief he can carry one of them and walk across the rope. Many responded that they believed. So he asked for volunteer. No one responded. After a long while, a small boy shouted that he wanted to. He said, "He is my Dad and I trusted him." So we know we may belief with our thinking only - it sounds rational, but it is not a true belief when we dare not follow what we think.

Thinking belief may show as fickle-mindedness. We thought something is true until we experience it to find out that it wasn't and we change our mind.

True Belief
True belief is conviction that we don't even think about it. We just act accordingly. We don't have to struggle to believe. That is true faith. Faith that guides our actions. So it sounds ironical that true belief is not having to try to belief or believing unconsciously. We can compare what we say we believe and what we think we believe against our actions to show whether there are any inconsistencies. The inconsistencies reveal what our true beliefs are.

Nevertheless, True Belief can be changed through knowing(the Mind) new truth and validated through experiencing (the Body) so that the new acquired belief can sink deep into our heart and be the guide to our actions without struggle anymore.